Parsons’ Columns Touch a Nerve

What a beautiful story Dana Parsons told (“Never ‘Pro-Abortion,’ but Once, Sadly, in Need of One,” April 24) about Ellen, who chose abortion rather than continue with a pregnancy that might not go full term, be stillborn, that probably wouldn’t survive 48 hours if born alive or, if it survived, would require permanent institutionalization.

Abortion was Ellen’s choice. My choice is to be one of the few men active in an organization called Pro-Choice Orange County, among hundreds of active women.

As a man, not pro-abortion nor anti-abortion, I believe individual women are the ones to make those decisions, not the government, not “Christian” right-wing congressmen, not even Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has been given a forum for his anti-choice views in the L.A. Times.

RICHARD KREILE

Santa Ana

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* Your columnist Dana Parsons referred to a drunk-driving offense as a “relatively minor” one (April 26). I beg to differ, having lost my only sister to a drunk driver’s actions.

While I too would not deny Dan Severson his hard-sought license from the state Respiratory Care Board, I do disagree with Severson’s statement that “we all grow and change.” Alas, we do not. Some of us die young.

ROCK O. KENDALL

Dana Point